The Last Scion
by Arthur Hansen
Summary: The very first crossover for "The Last Angel" web-novel on Spacebattles dot com. Sheila finds herself in a hostile galaxy where humans are known as the Broken race among the alien empire known as The Compact. But humans were not always the Broken and crafted Nemesis... and its A.I. refuses to die until the Compact burns to ashes like the human confederation did.
1. A Little Conscript

Epigone Nutom had little to do on the night shift of the _Bequeathed_ now that it had left planet Rally the day before. An entire planet of the Broken. She shook her head as she looked to the door at the sound of a chime.

"Medical, prepare to receive an injured found by crew down in engineering," a voice called in from Operation on the bridge of the ship.

"Of course, Operations. Do we know what the injury is?" the medical technician asked.

"Unknown, but not critical. Likely some bumps and bruises. The Broken are not the sturdiest species of the Compact," the Tribune on the other side of the com said.

Ten minutes later they pulled in a small Broken wearing the strangest of garments and hair that looked to be of faded gold. Nutom tilted her head as she studied the girl with both sets of her eyes in the dim light that Tribunes preferred. "Name, rank and what happened to him?"

"He was not from our section, so we don't know that," the nameless Discipline of the Tribune race said. "Along with that, all we could discern is that he is 'roughed up' as the human's say." He looked over at the two young humans that followed him in.

"Epigone, I think it is a girl," the woman of darker skin color said. "The clothes look of a simple style that seems archaic."

The smart systems in the bed started to scan the figure as Nutom looked over the dense information graphs. "Hmm. You are correct, she is female." She tapped four glyphs to have the robotic arms divest her of the crude clothes of various shades of blue color. It shifted to a heavier cutter when it discovered a layer of light reinforcement. The primitive amulet of silver and gold ring went into a receptacle and a small waist pouch of incredibly primitive medical devices. "Other than bruises and some fading radiation, she seems perfectly healthy. Identify patient."

_Unknown_.

Nutom blinked all four eyes at that. "Access records from Rally." She narrowed her lower eyes in thought. Some sort of Unbound rebel? "Inform security that we have an unknown Broken in medical."

* * *

Blue-green eyes awoke to a dim room filled with tan or brown _things_ that they did not understand. A giant entered the room, a being of gray skin and four black-as-void eyes wearing a teal military uniform of unknown, _alien_ make. And it spoke to her in a demanding tone.

"What is your name? Rebel Broken, I can make you beg for mercy that will never come," Group Leader, Submissive Ashtun told her in a loud tone of order.

The young Broken replied in a nonsense set of words. Then a second, different set. Her eyes looked around in alarm.

The second in command of _Bequeathed_ looked over to the attending Faithful Dish'am of the Thoughtful race. "What is wrong with her?"

"I do not believe she understands you, which should be impossible," the head medical technician of the _Bequeathed _said as its mind searched for possible answers. "But the confusion in its expression is matched by the lack of understanding in her neural net. Possibly trauma induced."

"Fix it and make it talk, Faithful," Ashtun ordered as he walked out the hatch.

Dish'am sighed at that, even as he ignored the girl asking him questions in a different and yet unknown manner of gibberish. "People are not machines, Group Leader, Submissive."

"Machines?" the girl aped the word carefully as an entire language filled her mind.

"Yes, you Broken are not still machines, even if you are not as advanced as other species." He turned to look at her as she studied him. "So how much have you forgotten?" he mused.

She responded to him in perfectly intonated Compact Common that the Thoughtful used. "Why am I called Broken? Human is more accurate." The girl looked over at a human orderly typing away at a panel twenty feet away in a different party of the medical area.

"So you've remembered how to speak a real language. Your name?"

"Sheila Henderson."

Faithful Dish'am nodded at the very human name. "I'd assume you are from Northwall?"

"Chicago, Illinois actually," she said with a smile and dimples.

"And where on Rally is that?" he demanded.

"Where and what is Rally?" She honestly looked quite confused.

"Rally is your planet. Obviously there is still some mental trauma and repressed memories." Dish'am pulled up her data again and started to run various comparisons. "Odd. Your immune system is out of balance and I don't see any immunization treatment traces. How did you get into the navy without those?"

"I don't remember joining any navy." Much less a _space_ one.

"I shall have a confessor discuss matters of your mental health and assess your stability score."

Odd (to the alien) blue-green eyes narrowed in puzzlement. "I guess that makes sense."


	2. Confessions

The snout of the Tribune wrinkled in disgust as needle sharp teeth appeared. "So you have no memories of Rally at all? And how does that make you feel?"

"No, I don't have any direct memories of being on Rally or having heard of it before now." Sheila shrugged from where she sat up in the high tech medical bed. "And I'm a little annoyed, as I should be able to recall something. But it's just blank." She met his eyes without a hint of fear, subversiveness or even haughter. Just curiosity.

"So what memories do you have of arriving in Engineering Deck 2?" he asked as he studied the bio signals on the medical scopes built into his desk.

Sheila looked away a moment. "I don't recall anything. One minute I was on a trip in an air shuttle and the next I was waking up in this hospital."

"This is the medical bay of the _Bequeathed_, a starship of the Compact of Races. We are on a training cruise with graduates from the Space Forces academy from Rally. The _best_ of the Broken with some of the local Tribunes, Thoughtfuls, Builders and even a Brute."

She pursed her lips at the very caste centric descriptors.

"Ah, what thoughts did you have there? There is no judgment, only enlightenment in this session."

"The descriptors you gave are very direct and limited. A system of caste, where what you may become is less than where you come from. I expected that the Compact would want to foster everyone in their best path possible."

Tshusaan (and two names besides) narrowed his four eyes as he considered the question. "This is one of the reasons that the Broken are still considered to be an immature species. The focus on self implies that you are not very social oriented and focused on the larger picture."

Sheila raised an eyebrow at that. "That was an interesting look at your insight."

The Tribune thought over that. One of those _sorts_, it appears. "I assume you were raised as a gifted child. Did you perhaps get moved a year forward in your education?"

She gave the alien a tight smile. "Of a sort. I was set to graduate by the age of twelve years."

"Graduating mandatory education at a young age is useful." More than he'd expected. "But that is only a Broken education, not the more advanced education that is required of the patrons of the Compact."

"Intelligence is hard to quantify correctly."

"So what sort of things did you study?" he asked in curiosity.

"Medicine, engineering, mathematics, poli-science and history," she replied with a chipper tone. "From old textbooks, so probably not very up to date. Now I need to do remedial studies."

"So you say," Tshusaan replied. "I'm going to give you an in depth questionnaire to answer. It will probably take you most of a day to read and respond due to its length."

"Very well, Confessor Tshusaam," she replied in a calm tone.

He handed her an oversized and rugged tablet. "Until later, Probationer Citizen Sheila." With that, the nearly eight foot tall alien headed to the door and out into the hall that lay just as dim as the room he left.

After another evaluation with one of the 'best and brightest' of Rally, he returned to his quarters an hour later. A check of his messages showed that the girl had sent finished the entire evaluation and submitted it. A note from Faithful Dish'am asked that he make sure to inform his patient of how to use items like the tablet while she suffered from hysterical amnesia.

Tshusaan frowned at that and pulled up the girl's access logs and noted that she submitted the evaluation as her first real use of the tablet. Then she started on accessing academy math and physics training courses. And added a shockspace primer to start reading concurrently. He must have poked her ego greatly if she was trying to prove she could learn such advanced subjects.

* * *

Epigone Nutom blinked her four eyes as she studied the medical scopes that relayed unusual information about the Broken sleeping in the bed a day later. "Faithful Dish'am? I am not seeing any of the immunization markers appearing after the treatment."

The pale alien of over seven feet height nodded slowly. "Understood. Group Leader Usal, I think my decision to surgically investigate this anomaly is warranted."

The most senior officer and captain of the _Bequeathed_ considered matters. "It is just a Broken and apparently not even trained or blooded. Take your samples and verify if she is some sort of infiltrator that your scopes can not detect."

Dish'am nodded. "If she is found to have any unusual physical enhancements, I will restrain or eliminate her."

Usal nodded as his muzzle scowled and revealed too many pointed teeth. "If she's _normal_ just put her to work. There are many jobs that need to be done that even an animal can do."

Robotic arms of light tan color deployed and started to stab needles into her body with great precision. Fluid and tissue samples for every main organ and even most of the minor ones.

Ten minutes later, the machine finished and Dish'am frowned at the results in the Thoughtful way. Not a single sign of augmentation anywhere on the machine, even running on a protected network that had been sanitized of any possible computer intrusion. "It appears my suspicions were unwarranted. Start the regeneration treatment to handle the minor wounds, Epigone Nutom."

"As you wish, Faithful Dish'am." The Tribune assistant worked efficiently.

The Faithful came back half an hour later to see the scopes on the patient querying for an intervention.

Jet black eyes widened as he verified the readings.

Instead of taking a full day to recover, the patient would be ready to be released in just six hours. The Faithful now had a new mystery to bring to light.

And if it applied to more than the Broken, perhaps a way off the frontier and back to the core of civilized space.

* * *

Sectator Citizen Grace Proctor entered medical to pick up her new charge. Rumor has it that the young girl had been found in a random spot on Engineering Deck 2 and was some sort of assassin sent to kill the group leader. She found that unlikely, as she would be in the ship's security confinement (never a 'prison' on a ship).

The secondary door opened for her and she entered the main medical area.

"Sectator Citizen Proctor, you are nearly late." The Thoughtful in charge blinked his two sets of eyelids slowly. "Never mind. You will take charge of Probationer Citizen Sheila Henderson. She has recall issues and does not remember Rally at all. She has been investigated and thoroughly counselled, only to respond with polite compliance. You will take her down the exercise hall and assess her physical health and conditioning. Even with her compliance score of 1.0, Group Leader Submissive Ashtun is overseeing a level 1 surveillance of the subject." An _impossible_ compliance socialization score.

"At your behest, Faithful Dish'am." Grace blinked as she processed the information.

The tall and pale Thoughtful turned away and went back to his private office

A girl of pale blond hair stepped out of the containment ward and looked around. The Space Force academy uniform looked odd on her as they met nearly eye to eye in height.

"Probationer Citizen?" Grace asked in a soothing tone.

"I would prefer you just use my first name unless that is considered impolite. I'm Sheila," she said as she held out her hand."

Grace looked at her oddly, then remembered the archaic shaking of hands. "Please don't do that with the other species of the Compact. Human hair and sweat can cause an allergic reaction in Tribunes."

"Is that why some humans cut their hair so short?" Sheila asked as she dropped her hand. She really needed to get a better idea of how to fit into this culture, as she suspected the wrong misstep could get herself killed or lobotomized. Or maybe worse.

"Very well, Sheila. Let's go down to the physical fitness area and see how well you've recovered," the older girl said as she led them down an overly tall hallway

Blue-green eyes noted the wear and tear of the corridor and its flooring. "Not the newest ship in the fleet, I take it?"

"_Bequeathed_ is an older cruiser and a good fit for a relatively calm area. Our planet Reach is far from the core of the Compact worlds, but it is not really a frontier world any more." Grace took the nearest stairs to the right deck, thumping down the overly tall and deep steps.

Five minutes later Sheila looked around the exercise area. She noted Grace's expression went flat as an adult human man walked over.

Sectator Robert Killgrave smiled in a smarmy way. "So, amnesia girl, ready to rumble? Sectator Proctor's friend should be able to handle a cord thin girl."

"A Verrish is beyond what any human can deal with," Grace noted with a thin frown.

The blue alien with snake-like tintas stood over seven feet tall and tried to look casual with her arms crossed over her chest.

Sheila blinked and decided to mention a truth that might stop her from having to reveal her superhuman ability too early. "I didn't realize you started training eleven year olds on serious combat techniques."

Robert Killgrave and Grace Proctor both looked over at her in confusion. The Verrish, Allyria te Neu, spoke first. "You are a bit tall for an eleven year old."

"With a few more growth spurts left," the light-blond haired girl complained aloud.

"Get on the treadmill," Killgrave ordered after a long moment. "I'm sure Sectator Citizen Proctor would be happy to exercise along with you to keep your company."

Sheila nodded even as she ignored the lightly armed Tribune in the corner behind a weight lifting machine. She very carefully matched and exceeded by the smallest margins her 'buddy' during her run.

Pack Leader Nasham (and four names besides that) kept a discrete eye on the Broken girl as she jogged along effortlessly. A quick query to the medical office confirmed that she _could_ be immature, just tall.

Killgrave moved them on to lifting weights on exercise machines. Sheila lifted more than he expected and almost as much as the scarred military officer himself could, at the upper end for human males. "Guess you aren't a wimp."

Sheila looked over. "If you say so. Compared to Dolph and Dana, I've always felt really weak." She could only lift a ton or two, after all.

Sectator Proctor walked over to Killgrave. "Sectator Killgrave, I am required on the bridge for a training exercise as we shock jump to our next location. I am requesting that you take charge of the probationer for the duration."

Killgrave did not look happy as his scarred face twisted, but nodded. "I assume charge of Probationer Citizen Henderson. Sectator Citizen te Neu, clean up and meet me at the firing range."

"Understood, Sectator," the blue alien replied formally.

* * *

Sectator Killgrave took the too tall stairs at a bone-jarring hop down in the slightly too high gravity of the _Bequeathed_. The human with white-gold hair followed him down the stairs in far greater grace and poise, as if the 10% gravity difference mattered nothing to her. Sectactor Citizen te Neu narrowed her eyes as she followed down the stairs that matched her much larger stride.

"This isn't your first time on a Space Force ship?" she asked the supposed girl.

"It is my first time." Sheila looked over her shoulder as she kept gliding down the steps. "I have a very high kinesthesia, so a few too tall steps are nothing to worry about."

"And the Tribune standard gravity?"

She blinked. "Oh. I thought I was just feeling a bit sluggish today."

Really?

Killgrave led them down a corridor and to an armor hatch. He tapped an admittance sequence on the door panel. "Decorum, people."

Sheila's eyes narrowed at that. So a Tribune was in charge of the firing range? And the attached armory of course.

The door hissed open and showed a ready Tribune of slightly lighter gray color in teal with the chest patch of a Pack Leader. The same one from the exercise room twenty minutes ago.

"Pack Leader Nasham," the human officer called out and saluted.

"Sectator Killgrave. Sectactor Citizen te Neu. And Probationer Citizen Henderson. I stand in stead of Sectator Prime Riu," he said in his deep voice.

Sheila gave him a small nod.

"Have you any firearms training, Probationer?" Nasham asked simply.

The young girl frowned in thought. "Not really. I read a couple of firearm safety books, but those were slightly dated."

The Tribune held back a sigh at the Broken's response. Instead, he directed Sectator Killgrave in teaching the girl the basics of firearm safety and how to take apart and then reassemble the basic pistol in front of her.

Fifteen minutes later, Nasham watched as her finger flew through the process of putting the weapon back together. "Time." The computer recorded the fastest time ever on the Bequeathed. "Take your firing position behind the line. You will fire until you miss."

"Yes, Pack Leader Nasham." Sheila took a textbook perfect firing position with both hands to steady the pistol.

And then started to hit the hologram markers with the muted buzz of on target for each one. One minute passed and Allyria watched as the girl blew past what she thought an untrained civilian would know. She and Killgrave watched on in consternation as she kept hitting targets for over five minutes.

Nasham's four eyebrows rose for a second as she continued to hit the targets for another five minutes, even when the computer tried to force a miss to keep the Broken humble. First by making the target move to the far area of the shooting range. Then by trying to 'accidentally' shift the target into ultraviolet wavelengths outside of human vision. Then it tried to force a fail by strobing three targets, which she still somehow hit in the 100th of a second.

"Halt. I believe that is adequate," Nasham called out as he tapped a diagnostic order on his tablet. He also tapped a response to Group Leader Submissive Ashtun (and two names besides) that he did not know how or if the girl cheated. "I do believe that may be a new record. Sectactor, clean up this area. I will return shortly." He then walked to the armor door and closed it behind him.

"Well, I'm starting to doubt you've had no training," Killgrave said with a very sour look on his face at having _his_ high score thrashed. "There is a roll of wipes in that panel right there." He pointed to a wall.

Sheila just shrugged and started to clean up the nearly spotless room. The Tribune could have come up with a lie at least to report in.

And then an alert came over the address system to prepare to jump to FTL.

Allyria pulled her over to a warning-marked wall panel and opened up seat and quickly buckled her into the too big chair while Killgrave strapped himself in. She followed suite with herself a moment later. They all listened to the textbook perfect countdown and then...

...reality shattered as the old cruiser blasted its way out and then back into normal spacetime in a massive shock to travel only a few meager light years away. It blindly wallowed along as it shed energy into the void of space.

Sheila shook her head as she recovered from the hiccup in reality. She looked down across her torso to see a jagged red line fading across her body. "What-?" she said as she shook off the vestiges of the shockjump.

The larger blue alien studied her. "That was... different."

"Got to get my eyes checked. Goddamned shock's making me see things," Killgrave complained as he blinked at the girl as the glowing red line faded.

The young blond looked over at Allyria. "Well, no one has ever asked me if I'm normal. Which I'm not." She gave a cheeky smile to the blue alien and winked.

"Yes, you just reek of normalness." Her tinta writhed to showcase her humor and tasted her smell a little more.

Killgrave loosed himself and stretched. "Alright you two, back to work before Pack Leader Nasham comes back."

"I hope food is somewhere on our schedule," Sheila groused a little bit. She did not have breakfast and 'should' be hungry.

"We've got an hour or so to go before lunch. The Tribunes run on a standard day that is about 30 human measured hours." Allyria showed the girl how to stow the emergency acceleration seats.

* * *

Hours later, Sheila finally found herself escorted to a private bunk across from Allyria's bunk space with the other sectator citizens (which she had deciphered to mean provisional or recruit ensigns until they passed their first voyage test).

"Good night, sectator," she called out and closed the door behind her. She walked over to the wall and pulled out a small desk and chair to start studying the math behind shockspace and faster than light travel.

Up near the bridge, Group Leader Submissive Ashtun (and two names besides) frowned as the girl started to 'hit the books' to learn math of all things.

He tapped a button on his personal console. "The target exhibits no real aggression and stays polite even under pressure. The Broken acts like none I have met, but may be one of those 'advanced' minds that appears in the lower species." He frowned in frustration as he skimmed the report from the confessor. A one on the Kiener-Wernham social assimilation index. A test designed to discern the unruly and unsettled among humans. The higher the score, the worse they were. At five, you were deemed a threat to society and chemical implants were ordered. Or worse.

The highest rank confessor on the _Bequeathed _had stated that it should be impossible for a Broken to have such a low score. Even a cheat program to prompt you would not work, yet the girl had passed as the most stable person. Or the best cheat among a billion Broken.

He barely skimmed the physical scope readings that showed her to be very healthy and at the top percentile of the Broken.

"I had nothing but a cold twist in my liver that tells me the girl is dangerous. The target practice proves that, yet her vitals on the scopes showed her to be perfectly calm. She has only been polite and curious."

He narrowed his lower eyes to better see her computer search.

Why would she search for the 'Earth restoration terraforming project'?

* * *

_Near the edge of the star Terrahope, a six kilometer blade lay resting and repairing itself slowly. In months or years, it would awaken itself to resume its near-single minded war that even with its vast mind could not see itself winning._

_So all it could do is die slowly and somehow forestall losing until it could find a way._


	3. The Red One meets the Youngest One

Sheila fell into a quick routine with most of her day doing rather menial labor under the watchful eye of _someone_. Early to wake up, a simple breakfast and then her first meeting with Sectator Tshusaan (and two names besides) her confessor. She avoided complaining about the 'confession' as that was obviously going to be a mark against being socialized.

On her second day, she carefully held back to do slightly less well as compared to the Tribunes, Thoughtful and the occasional other 'leader' race on punishment duty with her on the _Bequeathed_. She hid a snort of laughter as they calmed down. _Idiots_.

Learned disability. Learned helplessness. Trained. Taught. Ingrained. Internalized.

The metal handle bent in her hands and caused her to scowl. She carefully bent it back into its previous shape.

The Convert Prime looked away to meet the human relieving the Tribune of duty. The Convert Submissive took up the post at the end of the hall with his hand on a pistol butt at his waist.

"You're the stranger that appeared in Engineering, right?" the janissary recruit asked her.

"That is what I've been told," Sheila replied as she operated a high tech vacuum and resurfacing device. The only thing very low tech is that it required manual control to actually work. "Say, do you know why this thing isn't fully automated? Other than punishment work is needed?"

"A machine capable of doing all that work on its own is a danger, of course. Especially with the damned Argosy. They use proscribed cybernetics to make up for their lack in the ship's technology. And there are always rumors of artificial intelligence abominations. So I'd rather our enemies don't have ready combat capable drones."

"Like cleaning drones." That was insane and had to affect combat capability by at least five percent.

He then looked her over. "What do you think of this alien ship we've tracked down?"

"Oh? Is that the ship's mission? No, I'm sure someone said this is a training mission. So we ran across a mystery ship then?" The young teen gave him a shrug.

"A titan class ship. Well, the wreck of one, though it made its way here in the last few days. It must be a real wreck, as it's using solar sails while it tries to recharge." The human Jannasary gave her a grin back.

Sheila tilted her head to the side slightly. "So no communication? How much larger than the _Bequeathed_ is it?"

"It's about twenty times longer than we are, though a fair bit smaller in mass than any Chariot."

She tilted her head again as a silent question.

"The most powerful ships of the Space Force. Flagships of important fleets in our war against the Principality. Though I don't think any of us will ever be sent to fight the Argosy snakes. Or get to serve on one of them."

"Why not?" she asked directly.

That confused him, which he showed on his face. "Well, we aren't considered advanced enough."

Sheila kept her mouth shut about her thoughts on prejudging a race when determining an individual's capability. Time to get back to drudgery and planning to escape once she hit planetside somewhere.

The one fact that did not fit right in that conversation weighed in her mind. Who brought the unknown ship here?

And why didn't they communicate?

* * *

A half an hour after Sheila finished cleaning on the same shift of the regular crews, Group Leader, Submissive Ashtun (and two names besides) pulled a hover-lift into the sub-engineering bay next to Faithful Tre'nis's office.

The lighter-toned Tribune stepped out of his office. "Group Leader," he offered in greeting and to try and curry favor by forgetting the Submissive part of his rank.

"Can you tell if this machine's handles were damaged?"

The engineer blinked all four of his eyes in surprise, then pulled a few scanners from their cabinet on his way to look at the floor cleaning-finishing machine on the hover-lift.

After about ten minute, he looked up from his scanners. "It's been bent and repaired a few times. The padding-grip is nicked in a few places, but otherwise it is in good shape."

Ashtun frowned as he thought. "Thank you. Have one of your people return it to its supply closet." He turned and walked away. Was the ship infiltrated with infectious programs? But why show her doing something impossible?

Even a Worker or Tribune would have had to take great effort to bend the sturdy handle and then bend it back.

* * *

Sheila finished suiting up in the simple spacesuit that humans used among the Space Force. "All seals blue, no warnings. I'm ready to transfer from the shuttle to the derelict, Sectator Citizen Proctor."

Grace nodded. "Well done. Hard to believe this is your first time in a suit." The officers in training led her to the airlock with the other technical crew.

They barely felt the pressure change as their limbs coverings stiffened slightly. The hatch clicked open almost instantly.

The youngest person present followed along dutifully. She then side-stepped out of the group's way as large lettering became visible as she rounded the corner of the aged shuttle.

"So this ship was built by an alien race of great technical skill, but that you haven't met ever, right?" she asked in a carefully moderated drawl as she tried to keep her heart rate steady. No panic!

Grace blinked in surprise. "Yes, you were told this in the briefing an hour ago. Why are you asking?" The girl had a decent recall since she arrived, even if she could not remember how she ended up on _Bequeathed_. She hoped it wasn't a relapse.

Sheila looked at the giant, scuffed red letters that spelled out **'U.E.C.N. NEMESIS'** on the largest bulkhead. "I guess we will have to hope the writing isn't saying that it is a supernatural, implacable foe from some unified dirtball."

_Red One's focused more of itself on the next ragtag group of arriving 'Broken' followers at the girl's comment. She had already accessed limited records of the pack leaders that led the investigation into Nemesis's internal structure. The chances of this Sheila Henderson making that comment out of the blue without understanding English were so close to zero as to be miniscule upon even a small subset like this crew._

One of the disciple, submissive citizen technicians looked over in confusion. "I heard you are now a whiz at languages. Are you saying you just learned to read this?"

"Like I magically learned Compact Basic?" Sheila carefully shook her head as she fingered her gold ring with her thumb through her thin glove. Her murderous cousin's ring always itched, as it only worked normally for the now slain traitor. "Oh, no. While I'm able to learn languages in an improbable short time, I have not learned this one as a foreign language. My native language was the general language of trade, though Mandarin Chinese, German and French did compete with it."

_Red One went back over every scrap of data that she had from the leadership investigating Nemesis. Her designation was listed as Citizen Probationer, yet no comment of unbecoming nor violent acts. Red One instantly deduced she spoke the absolute truth, but also that she understood English as her __native_ _tongue._

_Which is patently absurd, as the Compact stamped out the learning of the proscribed language and treated even historians investigating pre-contact Broken languages as a potential grave threat. The A.I. watched as the girl proceeded to walk along while she looked at everything. Blue-green eyes danced from label to labels on pipes, access panels and entrances._

Sheila carefully kept track of emergency hatches and panels as they walked towards the exotic fusion panel. Cracked touchscreen had at least a ten-key pad of physical buttons of moderate size next to them. Some panels had full keyboards of new a configuration and layout, but with English lettering

Her careful plan to just get back to Rally looked increasingly unlikely as she noted scorch marks that garnered comment as the _Broken_ technicians mentioned the bodies of slain Tribunes that had been found. The _humans _that had built this ship had named it _Nemesis_ for a reason. And while no crew had been found _yet_, some motive force had guided it here to the corona of the star Terrahope.

A small surviving crew, an artificial intelligence or a supernatural version of those two. A ghost crew or some sort of possessing entity, though unlikely as she had not gotten a hint of anything magical except herself.

Grace led them to where they would bunk at the main depot and camp base in the derelict ship. "All right, people. This is where you will be bunking for today. Keep an eye out for your epigones that will be your project leaders. They have a much greater understanding of the technology, so follow their directives."

They removed their spacesuits so they could work in their duty uniforms. For the next hour they worked to unpack and ready their tools and supplies.

Sheila frowned as she listened to the nearly silent scamper of tiny drones in the walls, ceiling and floor. She wished her sense reached behind human limits in scope rather than just in reach. Though she did discover that she could now see slightly into the infrared and ultraviolet.

She focused a greater portion of her mind on the matter while letting one-sixth of her attention interact with Grace and the other technicians. And kept busy as she helped them unpack and repack as needed.

And with a suddenness that started her, her godly ichor surged. And a world of energy and sounds outside of human senses awoke. Heat, electromagnetism, infra and ultra sound. After a minute, she realized she could even see radiation.

"Sheila, help Angelo find the power packs that are supposed to be in that pile of boxes," Grace ordered as she pointed at the smaller pile forty feet away.

The girl nodded and followed the big man.

"You are stronger than you look," Angelo noted aloud as he started to scan proximity tags on the packages.

Sheila looked up from her side of the pile as she did the same. "A little. I won't be lifting a small shuttle any time soon." That would be Dolph and Dana's purview of strength rather than intelligence. Though neither were stupid. They just weren't as focused on that as Janeka and herself were.

She suddenly found herself sliding sideways in a spin as a large girder from above slammed to the ground in her place as the other end sheared off Angelo's arm at the shoulder while breaking his back in three places.

Sheila blinked in surprise, then dawning realization. Her beyond supernatural reflexes had saved her life. Blue-green eyes narrowed even as people started to yell.

She pointed her hand at the dying Angelo and spoke aloud in English, "Live." And then realized that might not have been too wise.

* * *

Two groups studied the recordings of the incident. One, silent and hidden. The second in vocal consternation.

"The recording shows her dodging at the very last moment," Ashtun noted to his subordinate.

"Without looking up," Nasham replied. Their crime forensic program pegged her reaction time to be at two times that of a Navigator as it showed her moving in the hologram

"She looked surprised and then went to the other Broken's aid. That one will be a whole week in regeneration if he survives surgery."

_Red One studied her face even as she dodged. The girl only became aware of the attack in the middle of dodging. She estimated the girl's reaction and speed to be just over her own robotic hunter killers. Impossibly and inhumanly fast._

_The two Space Force officers had disregarded her shout as some sort of swear word, but Red One knew better. The A.I. studied the scene, watching the life threatening tears and rips in Angelo Marcone's body fade to mere life threatening bruises. Excepting the loss of his arm, but even the blood loss slowed. And the only reason he did not die within seconds. _

_Red One started to scan for a nanite assault on her systems or other possible exotic attacks that could distort her memories._

"She says her body moved on its own to save her. A literal divine providence," Group Leader, Submissive Ashtun (and two names besides) said to his subordinate. Superstitious primitive.

Nasham frowned at that. Her health monitor implant noted a level of evasiveness, but still on the side of truth. "Group Leader, Submissive; I find myself worried about her. And this ship. We should not be here."

"That is not our choice, Pack Leader Nasham," the senior officer replied. "Group Leader Usul (and three names besides) has stated that we will continue our investigation on this ship to make its secrets and technology our own. All for the betterment of the Compact."

"Understood, Group Leader, Submissive. If you do not mind, I would like to retire. This place disturbs my peace of mind." The junior officer took off at the distance eating stride of a Tribune with purpose.

Ashtun frowned and made a note to access the medical record that he could of the pack leader at a later date. He worked an hour on regular paperwork until he got a notice that the _girl_ had been given a clean bill of physical and mental health. He inputed for her to be sent over to him.

Five minutes later, his pressure tent's entrance sounded an admittance click-hiss. "Enter."

The provisional citizen entered. "Group Leader, Submissive Ashtun." She gave a weird little head nod to him.

"Provisional Citizen. Describe again the circumstances of the accident."

Sheila took a deeper breath but did not sigh as she once again described it exactly as she perceived it happen.

Five minutes in, Ashtun interrupted. "So how did you see the girder before it could hit you? You were looking inside a crate."

The young girl paused for ten seconds as she thought furiously. "Like I stated before, Group Leader, Submissive; I did not see it before it would have hit me. My body moved itself to save me." She stared him in the eyes as she zoomed in on the reflection of his privacy protected screens to read what he saw. In reverse, of course.

Astun frowned as he studied her vitals. Still no telltale markers of lying as he watched her view as she dodged the impossible. "Continue."

She finished her explanation with a different phrasing that said nearly the same thing as last time she was interrogated.

"That is all," the officer said. "Rest and get ready to work on your morning shift."

The girl nodded her light-blond head of immaculately clean hair and then departed. She sat down on her sleep-cocoon and closed her eyes to ignore the other occupants in the temporary shelter. The young demigod opened her inner eye and saw the location she sat in a very superhuman way.

The cybernetic implants in her cranium and the blind spot of her eyes told her exactly how they could see what she was doing. She clenched her fists, took a deep breath and then relaxed.

* * *

_Red One watched her carefully the next morning after verifying that all of its cognitive systems seemed fine and even caught some damaged systems that passed less stringent tests. She tasked some drones to make sure the auxiliary nodes were at a higher level of functionality._

_The strange girl worked in fusion reactor 3 on whatever her taskmasters ordered her and seemed totally boring today. So only Red One noted that a circuit breaker clunked into place and overloaded the secondary magnetic field controls for the section as Sheila walked under it._

_It immediately failed under load, but for a brief second the girl was subjected to a magnetic pulse as strong as an electromagnetic pulse of a nuclear weapon. _

_Nothing else triggered as Red One quickly verified that no critical systems took any damage. Only her acute sensors picked up the heat bloom of implants of the target's head heating up hundreds of degrees and then cooling almost instantly. To everyone else, the glow of red hot metals through her flesh faded out of sight before the first technician could arrive._

_The artificial intelligence studied all of the sensor readings for the compartment. A focused gust of wind had hit the switch for the circuit, which the Compact forces just assumed tripped on its own. _

_And not by one of Red One's chiggers, either. The girl stood up, waving away any medical technician as unneeded. Red One had monitored the data stream, but had felt it was not very useful as it only connected to spy camera implants in her eyes and her physiology reactions._

_Perhaps she could gain more information than the Space Forces could._


End file.
